The Concept of Time
by Stellarsong
Summary: An innocent girl goes on an innocent trip to a seemingly innocent museum. Turns out it's not so innocent after all...


**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight Zone and the original idea came from my dad. I do, however, own the characters.**

**A/N: I've always been fascinated with Twilight Zone stuff but I guess that's just 'cause I'm a weird person and I'm one of those people who likes to think about the unexplainable, surreal things until my head explodes. So, since my love of strange and surreal fantasies just begged me to write this short little story, I am hereby posting it for all to see. I hope you enjoy.**

_The Concept of Time_

The museum was large, dark against a gray sky. Gillian Ford marched up the concrete steps of the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a spiral-bound notebook in one hand. Entering the building, she glanced at her paper, a school assignment. It was supposed to be like some sort of scavenger hunt, a list of questions such as "Who was the artist who painted the depiction of the Mayflower on the wall above the pioneer exhibit?" or "What was the name of the City of Gold the Spaniards were after?" Gillian thought it was a pointless assignment, coming all the way to the museum for the information, but at least she liked history so it wouldn't be too bad.

A few people she recognized were there, milling about and looking bored. Gillian paid for her ticket and immediately set down the "Time-Tunnel," a lengthy hallway adorned with black and white photographs and artists' illustrations.

After paying these little attention, she emerged in the eighteenth century, a room filled with paintings, uniforms, bayonets, anything from the Revolutionary war. She looked down at her assignment. Question number one: What was the first battle of the Revolutionary war and who won? Answer: The battle of Lexington and Concord; the American minutemen. She quickly jotted it down in her notebook. Question number two: What were the leading causes of –

"Hey, Gillian!"

She turned away from the display case to see a black-haired girl behind her.

"Hi, Sadie," Gillian greeted her friend.

"Still working on that homework, huh?" When Gillian nodded, she added. "Well, I've already finished that. So I guess I'll just hang around with you. Um, Karen's here somewhere, I think. I'll go find her and then we'll help you, kay?" Be right back." Then she was heading out to another room.

That's when Gillian realized she was completely alone. She wandered over to a painting that hung on the wall. It showed soldiers during the war, holding high their bayonets while others rode horses. She could almost hear the cries of the soldiers, the pops of British muskets, the trampling of feet. She could feel the ground tremble.

"Sadie?" she called, half-expecting her friend to return through the next door. But she did not. Gillian decided to wait awhile before heading after her, down the hall that led to the Salem Witch Trials and then further into the Middle Ages.

This room was dimly lit, with wooden walls and fake flame that sent dancing patterns of light spewing across the room. There was only one question referring to this time period and she swiftly answered it.

She was about to leave for the next room, with decreasing interest, when a squeal made her stop. On the floor, barely visible, was a huge rat, its naked tail writhing, its small, beady eyes glittering. Gillian gasped and the rat darted off. _Rats in a museum_? she thought. _Yuck_!

One thing she did like about the museum was its vast collection. It didn't end with the Mesopotamians or the Neanderthals. It went far back to the beginning of life on Earth. She decided to see if Sadie had disappeared into the Mesozoic era.

When she arrived at the Ice Age, she became unnerved at the fact that, not only could she not find Sadie, but she couldn't find any_one_. No tourists on vacation to Chicago, using up their rolls of film. No little kids who tried to touch everything only to be scolded by parents. No murmur of casual conversation. She began to realize all was quiet and the air was cold.

Then there was the clatter of rocks.

"Hello?" Gillian called out, spinning around. A wind started up, as if the AC system had been turned on. It made her shiver.

The sound came again, accompanied by a menacing groan, like that of a searching predator. Gillian wrapped her arms around her chest. The tips of her ears stung and her breath came out in clouds. She backed away, then turned and ran.

It was like hitting a solid wall when the air suddenly turned warm and moist, rather than cold and dry. She couldn't help but gawk in amazement.

The room she was now in was filled with trees. Large, green trees with huge fronds that stretched to the floor and vines that tangled around their branches like coiling boas. The tiled floor was covered in dirt and clumps of lichen and rocks. At first, Gillian thought the chirping of animal life was merely a recording. Until she spotted movement in the canopy.

She whipped around but could no longer see the door she had come through. Thick tendrils of vine blocked her path.

The branches parted and small, black eyes stared out from a long, pale head. Sharp talons dug into the wood before the creature released its hold.

Gillian screamed and bolted. The sharp branches tugged at her clothes and hair. The leaves whipped her in the face. A gnarled root caught her foot and she stumbled forward, only stopping her fall with her hands. The hard dirt stung her scraped palms as she lurched forward, searching for an exit. She wasn't even sure if the creature still pursued her, but she didn't want to stop and find out. She just kept running.

The air grew increasingly hotter as the vegetation altered, going back through its own evolution. There were no more flowers or big-leafed trees. The ground was sun-baked clay.

Then that, too, thinned into hard tile as Gillian ran faster and faster, the notebook still under her arm yet forgotten.

She burst out of the desert and stopped.

A long hallway stretched out before her, a tiled floor, blank walls, a bench sitting on the right side. And at the end of that hall was a door. A red exit signed glowed in the dimness.

Gillian slowly approached, her shoes treacherously loud on the smooth tile. She was nervous at what she might find. Now the door was a mere foot away, but the glare of the sun made it impossible to see out the small window.

There was one last exhibit, she realized, just on her left. She hadn't noticed it before. It was a picture of the Earth seen from space, only it was a world far in the past. A single sign hung next to it, reading "In the beginning…"

Gillian took another step forward and peered out the window.

Water. Smooth water that went on for miles, for infinity, curving around the horizon in the distance. No land pockmarked its surface. No gull swooped overhead. No dolphin leaped, no whale breached. It was an ocean devoid of all life, a desolate desert of salt and water that would never end, not at all affected by the museum's presence.

Gillian gasped and there was a splash.

She looked down. Her notebook had fallen from her grip and now lay on the tiles in a shallow pool of water.

She scooped it up, backing away as more of the seawater seeped in through the crack under the door, flooding the hallway. Her leg bumped into the wooden bench and she closed her eyes tight, wanting to scream yet nothing came out.

The water was coming in faster now, sloshing against her shoes and the continuous growl built to an intense roar that devoured her senses until nothing was left. She was trapped, stranded, lost in a world that was not hers, billions of years before she would have been born. The fear welled up inside her until she felt she might explode from the insanity of it all. Her eyes ached from the way she squeezed them shut and when she finally relaxed them –

"Gillian, are you okay?"

Her eyes snapped open. The roar turned into the haze of voices and the scuffled sound of many feet upon tile.

"Are you okay?" Sadie repeated, a worried expression on her face.

"What?" Gillian murmured, aware that both Sadie and Karen were watching her. "Um, yeah, I'm fine," she lied.

"I thought I told you to wait where I left you," Sadie said. "Come on, let's go."

Gillian breathed a long sigh of relief. It had all been a dream. Just one very vivid, surreal dream. She tried to calm down, aware of her speeding pulse and the throbbing headache that was beginning to form. She nearly smiled with the utter joy that she was among people again, that none of it had been real. She glanced at the window in the door. The drooping branches of an old willow brushed against it and when she looked at the floor, it was dry. Yes, it had all been a dream.

Then she looked down.

The back of her notebook was wet.

**OooooO, doesn't that just make your spine tingle? It does mine. Yes, I know it's kind of short, but I just had to write it. I sure hope you enjoyed it and please leave a review before you go. It would be well appreciated and everyone who leaves a review is AWESOME!!!**


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